Dec 10, 2008

Vermelding onderdeel organisatie

1

Tilting Perspective Conference, Tilburg, NL

David Koepsell, TU Delft, TPM Faculty, Philosophy Section

On Genies and Bottles:Scientists’ Moral Responsibility and Dangerous R&D

April 9, 2023 2

The Ethical Context

Rapid rate of technological progress, and increasing availability of cheaper tools for scientific and technological applications, make it harder to ensure public safety.

It is becoming easier to create catastrophic technologies without detection.

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The Ethical Context

How can we help ensure a safer world? What roles do governments have, and what roles do scientists and technologists have?

Who is morally responsible for dangerous research and development?

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Aims

To provide an argument for individual moral responsibility of scientists

To provide an argument for governmental responsibility for moral education of scientistsa) component requirements (a basic principle)b) institutional requirements

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Science and Ethics

Traditionally, individual responsibility for deployment of dangerous technology has divorced scientists from the consequences.

Precepts: a) science should inquire into everything

b) politicians and maybe engineers are responsible for deployment

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Science and Ethics

These precepts lead to a sort of “scientific firewall” against moral responsibility. Scientists cannot be morally responsible because their duty is the unfettered exploration of everything, regardless of potential consequences.

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Science and Ethics

Q: Do scientists ever have a positive moral duty to refrain? Let’s consider a graphic example…

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Smallpox Science

Smallpox was eliminated from the environment in 1977. It could have been eliminated altogether, and all stores of the virus destroyed. But as late as 2001, scientists in the US decided to conduct experiments to create a monkey-model of variola infection…

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The Australian Mousepox “Trick”UPI: “CANBERRA, Australia, Jan. 11 (UPI) -- Scientists

working for the Australian government have created a genetically engineered mousepox virus more deadly to mice than the original virus. Even when vaccinated with a normally effective vaccine, half the mice died after infection with the new virus.

Biological warfare experts are worried that the current international Biological and Toxin Weapons Convention, abbreviated BTWC, may not be strong enough to cope with the misuse of the genetic engineering techniques. Governments from all over the world have been meeting in Geneva for six years to address the BTWC shortcomings, but have failed to reach final agreement.

Dr. Ian Ramshaw, a viral engineer and the immunologist on the mousepox experiment, told United Press International that inserting genetic material has hazards. His team will publish their research in the February issue of the Journal of Virology.

"It is a potentially vile weapon," Renshaw said.”

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The Australian Mousepox “Trick”

The gene splice involved with the Mousepox Trick may easily be applied to smallpox, making a nearly unstoppable weapon.

So why shouldn’t scientists now take the next step and see if this is true?

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Smallpox Ethics

The Dual-Use argument ultimately is unhelpful, even a nuclear weapon has a dual-use (like Project Orion, above). Dual-use was used to justify smallpox research (a catch-22 argument).

Are there or should there be moral limits to some research? Is some research morally prohibited because of its nature?

Is there a model for shaping researchers’ behaviours?

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The Bioethics Example

Nazi crimes, Milgram, Tuskeegee, and other historical ethical lapses led slowly to the development of modern bioethics.

Belmont Report guides the development of institutions and education meant to protect future human subjects studies

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The Bioethics Example

The eradication of smallpox itself was based upon initially unethical research:“Dr. Jenner decided it was time to test his vaccination, and he tested it on his gardener's son, an eight-year-old boy named James Phipps. (He got the term "vacca" from the Latin word for "cow.") The boy did contract Cowpox, but he recovered from it within a few days. Dr. Jenner then waited eight weeks for the boy's body to build an immunity. To complete his experiment, Dr. Jenner exposed James to Smallopx. Amazingly, the boy did not contract the deadly disease, and the doctor claimed success.”

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The Bioethics Example

Jenner’s work would be unethical under the Nuremburg Code, which requires animal testing, and the Belmont Principles, which require informed consent.

Because, even as late as the mid-20th Century, physicians and researchers still did not always heed these principles, Ethics Boards and IRBs were created by law to oversee human subjects research.

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Belmont +

Can we re-fashion or re-apply standard bioethics principles beyond the protection of individual subjects? When scientific research has either a direct or potential effect on humanity as a whole, ought we to apply the principles of dignity, respect, beneficence, and justice to basic science?

Isn’t there a broader moral horizon at stake?

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Examples

Consider the fictional discovery of ïce-nine”in Cat’s Cradle…

Ice-nine has a dual use (think, skating in summer), but does this justify its initial development given Belmont Principles?

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Examples

Science doesn’t kill people; people with technologies kill people …

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Examples

But even the most ardent gun-rights proponent will not support free ownership of tactical nuclear weapons, and international law prohibits research and development of such weapons.

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Examples

I contend that when considering the ethics of scientists, we must not only look at regulations, laws, and codes used to review or punish their actions, but we should also consider intentions and motivations with an eye toward education.

Moral training of scientists, as with other professionals, presupposes not only that we wish to keep them from breaking laws or running afoul of professional codes of conduct, but also that we wish to help develop moral insight that can guide behaviors.

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Morals Matter

So what of ice-nine, smallpox, and other potentially catastrophic science and technology?

We might argue that beneficence argues in favor of investigating smallpox because we worry about terrorist uses of it and need to devise treatments. All of which is recursively self-satisfying, because we would not have had to worry about this had scientists done the right thing to begin with, and supported its ultimate destruction.

In the world of Cat’s Cradle, we could similarly argue in favor of ethically pursuing ice-nine research only in a post-ice-nine-apocalypse environment.

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Morals Matter

An argument that is often used to justify these sorts of scientific inquiries is that “someone will devise the technologies, and employ them harmfully, eventually. Thus, we should investigate these things first (because we have good intentions).”

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Morals Matter

Of course, this reasoning justifies investigating any and all science and technologies, no matter how potentially destructive or threatening to humanity or the environment.

But it presupposes a) that the investigators doing the work have good intentions, b) that the technology or discovery would eventually be carried out by others, and c) that once discovered or applied, it can be contained

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Morals Matter

The “eventual” fallacy justifies any investigation, and scientific inquiry, no matter the potential consequences. It fails if we broaden the moral horizon offered by the Belmont principles to include humanity as a whole ….

Implicit in bioethical principles is some utilitarian calculus

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Morals Matter

Science proceeds not in a vacuum, but as a socially devised institution. It is conducted by professionals, with funding from mostly public sources, and with relative freedom under the auspices of mostly academic environments. As a largely public institution, and as the beneficiaries of the public trust and wealth, scientists must consider the consequences of their inquiries

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Morals Matter

The “eventual” argument makes sense when the risks posed by investigating a deadly thing is outweighed by the likelihood of that deadly thing’s being discovered and used by others combined with the potential of a scientific investigation developing a plausible protection of the public at large. So, roughly:

R=risk, L=likelihood of independent discovery and use, and P=potential benefit from scientific investigation

now

April 9, 2023 26

Morals Matter

R=risk, L=likelihood of independent discovery and use,

and P=potential benefit from scientific investigation

now

If L+P>R, then a scientist can make a moral case for pursing an investigation into something posing a large, general risk. Otherwise, there is simply no moral justification for further inquiry.

April 9, 2023 27

Cultivating Moral Responsibility

Unlike the Belmont Principles, which could be used to guide the development of regulatory institutions, the expanded ethical horizon I have argued for above requires individual responsibility on the part of scientists. The calculus proposed must be employed by scientists before they ever get to the point of disseminating their ideas. It is a personal, moral responsibility that must be cultivated.

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Cultivating Moral Responsibility

Nonetheless, encouraging the development and adoption of these principles, and adopting the notion of a broad horizon of scientific responsibility (encompassing not just individual human subjects, but also responsibility toward humanity in general), can best be encouraged through new institutions.

Legal and regulatory bodies ought to devise these institutions both within and among sovereigns. Professional organization as well ought to embrace and adopt ethical training of their members, understanding that scientists are citizens of broader groups whose funding and support they require. Education in principles not just of scientific integrity, but also social responsibility, ought to be developed and embraced.

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Cultivating Moral Responsibility

Just as governments take it upon themselves to fund and advance research and development, both out of scientific curiosity and as a way to grow economically, so should they adopt the responsibility to educate scientists to be better citizens.

As taxpayers provide for investigations into nature’s truths, sometimes with no potential for economic benefit, they must also be considered as beneficiaries or targets of the fruits of scientific inquiry…

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We are all human subjects of certain inquiries

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Thank you

Atlas R. M. and Dando M. (2006). The dual-use dilemma for the life sciences: perspectives, conundrums, and global solutions, Biosecurity and Bioterrorism: Biodefense Strategy, Practice, and Science, Vol. 4, No. 3, pp. 276-286.

Childress, J., Meslin, E., & Shapiro, H., Eds. (2005). Belmont revisited: Ethical principles for research with human subjects. Washington, DC: Georgetown University Press.

Cohen H.W., Gould R.M., Sidel V.W. (2004), The pitfalls of bioterrorism preparedness: the anthrax and smallpox experiences, American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 94, No. 10, pp. 1667-1671.

Corneliussen F. (2006). Adequate regulation, a stop-gap measure, or part of a package? EMBO Reports, Vol. 7, pp. s50-s54.

Ehni, H-J. (2008). Dual use and the ethical responsibility of scientists. Arch. Immunol. Ther. Exp., Vol. 56, pp. 147-152.

Jones N.L. (2007). A code of ethics for the life sciences, Science, Engineering Ethics, Vol. 13, pp. 25-43.

Kelley M. (2006). Infectious disease research and dual-use risk, Virtual Mentor: Ethics Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 8, No. 4, pp. 230-234.

Miller S and Selgelid M.J. (2008). Chap. 3: The Ethics of dual-use research, in Ethical and Philosophical Consideration of the Dual-Use Dilemma in the Biological Sciences (Miller ed.), Springer Sciences, NV.

Musil, R. K. (1980). There must be more to love than death: A conversation with Kurt Vonnegut. The Nation, Vol. 231 (Issue 4): p128–132.

Nixdorff K. and Bender W. (2002). Ethics of university research, biotechnology and potential military spin-off, Minerva Vol. 40, pp. 15-35.

Preston R. (2003). The Demon in the Freezer (Fawcett).Somerville M.A. and Atlas R. M. (2005), Ethics: a weapon to counter bioterrorism, Science, Policy

Forum, Mar. 25, p. 1881.

References